


where the lost boys meet

by corgasbord



Series: Oumota Week 2018 [1]
Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: M/M, Pre-Game Personalities (New Dangan Ronpa V3), Smoking, Their relationship is complicated, it's not really romantic, saihara is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-03 13:24:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14569944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corgasbord/pseuds/corgasbord
Summary: Kokichi has a bad habit of throwing stones from glass houses.(Oumota Week Day 1: Pregame)





	where the lost boys meet

**Author's Note:**

> hey all, i'm here to kick off oumota week with a pregame idea i've been cooking for a while! i actually enjoy pregame v3 a lot and have been itching to write about it for a long time. my interpretation of pregame ouma is... significantly different than most that i see, and i felt that it deserved some exploration, so now i'm finally putting it out here! i hope you all enjoy!

There’s a pond towards the outskirts of Kokichi’s prefecture that few but himself visit. It isn’t particularly spacious; it’s small and quiet, just like him, and that makes it the perfect place to go when he needs something close to peace.

Today, though, the space isn’t empty. There’s a worn wooden bench a bit farther up the bank of the pond, upon which a tall boy with spiked purple hair sits with one calf lazily thrown over the opposite thigh. A boy whom Kokichi is, unfortunately, all too familiar with. He contemplates retreating before he can be spotted, but the boy looks up before he can decide, eyebrows raised and a cigarette hanging halfway out of his mouth.

“Oi, Ouma,” he says gruffly, pinching the cigarette between his index finger and thumb. “The hell are you doing all the way out here?”

Kokichi could still run. He probably wouldn’t get chased, so if he _really_ wanted to he could turn tail and flee. He’d like to believe he’s better than that, though, so instead he bravely steps closer to the bench, his expression carefully closed off.

“Momota-kun,” he addresses the boy in as apathetic a manner as he can manage. Kaito Momota is nowhere close to what he’d call a friend, and even saying he’s a friend of a friend would be stretching it. He’s an acquaintance at best, an ally by sole virtue of the fact that they aren’t quite on bad terms with one another. “This isn’t too far from where I live, actually.”

“Oh. Huh.” Kaito turns his gaze back to the surface of the pond, glimmering faintly in the fading evening light. “You come here often, then?”

“Does it matter?” Kokichi asks.

It’s an unexpectedly bold response, and Kaito blinks, taken aback. Then he snorts. “Guess not.” He takes a drag of his cigarette and lets the smoke puff leisurely from between his lips. “This is a pretty nice little spot, though. Figured maybe this is where you slink off to when you don’t feel like dealing with Saihara.”

Kokichi frowns, discomfited. A tentative friendship with a sweaty geek is the one thing he and Kaito have in common, if friendship is what it could even be called. “Not really. Saihara-kun normally leaves me alone if I tell him to,” he says, and it isn’t really a lie. Some days Shuuichi has to be spurned more forcefully than others, but his point still stands. “Besides, he spends more time with you nowadays, anyway.”

Kaito’s eyes narrow ever so slightly, searching. “What, that bother you or something?”

“Nope.” It still isn’t a lie. He paces down closer to the bank and crouches, skimming a flattened palm over the pebbles gathered a few feet from the water. “I’m glad he has someone else to talk to. It’s sort of sad that I was the only person he could call a friend, don’t you think?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Kaito says. “The guy’s pretty fucking pathetic, if you ask me.”

Kokichi hums. “Why do you hang out with him, then?”

“Why do you, wiseass?”

Kokichi scoops up a small, round pebble and rises. “Touché.” With a flick of his wrist, he sends the pebble skittering across the surface of the water, bouncing once, twice, three times before sinking. Not his strongest effort. He bends down again and says, “Saihara-kun mentioned that you couldn’t hang out after school today because you weren’t feeling well. Is this _your_ way of taking a break from him?”

“I wasn’t lying, if that’s what you’re trying to say,” Kaito replies, a hint of an edge to his voice that makes Kokichi’s shoulders stiffen. “I really don’t feel too hot, and sitting here relaxing takes a hell of a lot less energy than dealing with that guy.”

Kokichi tosses another pebble. “I see.” He wisely decides not to point out that Kaito basically affirmed his need to distance himself from Shuuichi for a while.

A heavy silence blankets them, broken only by the soft splashing of rocks skidding over the pond. It’s not a silence that Kokichi would call comfortable, but he can tolerate it if he directs his focus to skipping stones. It’s what he usually does when he comes to this place, after all. He gives his hands something to occupy themselves with and his thoughts room to wander, and for each stone he throws he imagines it making an impact with the forehead of every person who’s ever shoved him, mocked him, become the reason he has to cower. He knows full well that it would hurt. On some days he wonders if it could kill someone.

Kokichi doesn’t like Kaito. Kaito is every tough guy who’s ever picked on Kokichi, every bullheaded high school boy with a violent streak that Kokichi’s ever met. Kaito is mean and egotistical and selfish and everything Kokichi wishes he could be, if only he were bigger, if only he weren’t so damn _weak_. He could turn and fling a rock so that it would land directly between Kaito’s eyes and stain his face as red as his unwashed t-shirt, like David toppling Goliath, the strong finally receiving long-due comeuppance.

But the thought is more sick than satisfying, so he stifles it and chucks his stone into the water instead. It doesn’t bounce.

Kaito is the one to speak up again, breaking Kokichi’s concentration. “Did Saihara tell you he’s auditioning for _Dangan Ronpa_?”

Slowly, Kokichi pivots to face where Kaito is sitting. It takes him a few seconds to feel the bite of his own fingernails in his palms and uncurl his fists. “He mentioned that, yes,” Kokichi says tersely. “What about it?”

Kaito twiddles his cigarette between his fingers. “Was thinking I might do the same.”

“Oh,” Kokichi says. His expression doesn’t change. “Why? I thought you didn’t care about it.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I still don’t give a shit about it,” Kaito explains. “But apparently entering can net you some serious cash. I’m thinking I’ll throw myself into the ring, kill someone, and come out rich. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right?”

He’s probably expecting validation. Instead, Kokichi points out, “If you plan to win the game by killing, doesn’t that mean Saihara-kun will have to die?”

Kaito’s fingers tighten around his cigarette, almost too subtly to catch Kokichi’s eye. “Why should that matter to me? He might not even get in. And if he does, well… the guy wants to die anyway. Not my problem.”

Kokichi cocks an eyebrow. “That doesn’t bother you?”

“Not at all,” Kaito says. It isn’t the full truth, and Kokichi thinks the both of them must know that much.

He doesn’t realize he’s cutting crescents into his own palms again until Kaito shifts, procuring a pack of cigarettes from one pocket. “You look a little high-strung,” Kaito remarks, holding the little box out to him. “Take one.”

Kokichi stares, eyes darting from Kaito’s face to the box in his hand. It sounds more like a command than an offer, but it’s only when Kaito impatiently jostles the pack that Kokichi moves to accept with faintly trembling fingers.

“Do you, um.” Kokichi hesitantly settles on the opposite end of the bench, bringing the cigarette up close to his mouth. “Do you have a…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kaito grunts around his own cigarette, and then he’s leaning over and he’s close, far too close for comfort, close enough that Kokichi can smell the cheap cologne clinging to him and see every hair out of place in his dumb goatee. He freezes, dumbstruck, and watches Kaito touch the glowing butt to his own unlit one, holding it there until thin tendrils of smoke curl up between them. It only takes a few seconds, but they feel like the most loaded few seconds of Kokichi’s life.

“Uh. Thanks,” Kokichi stammers, fumbling to close his lips around what will be his first drag and hating how much warmer the balmy summer air suddenly feels. He shuts his eyes and squeezes his cigarette tight between two fingers as he inhales, bitter, dry fumes filling up his mouth and coiling down into his lungs.

It burns badly enough that he has to cough the breath back out, and he hears Kaito bark out a laugh. “What’s the matter, this your first time smoking or something? Pussy.”

Kokichi doesn’t respond beyond a glare out of the corner of his eye. He tries again, a bit more successfully this time, and decides he doesn’t like it. He continues to do it anyway.

The sun has begun to sink beyond the line of the trees in the distance, and pinpricks of light appear in the darkening sky to take its place. “Hey, Momota-kun,” Kokichi says. His voice is still hoarse, so he clears his throat into a clammy fist.

Kaito casts him a vaguely annoyed glance. “What?”

“What if,” Kokichi starts, looking out somewhere beyond the water, “I joined _Dangan Ronpa_ , too?”

A beat passes. Then Kaito laughs, loud and full and genuinely humored. He laughs hard enough that he coughs, too, shaky and wet into his elbow before resurfacing a good ten seconds later. Kokichi pretends not to notice the damp spots on his sleeve.

“You?” he asks. “Are you kidding me? A twerp like you is instant kill-bait. No fucking way you’d last.”

“Maybe,” Kokichi says. “But I’d be a different person, wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t be the same. So… who knows what would happen, really.”

“Whatever personality they give you can’t change what you are,” Kaito scoffs. “You’re still a shrimp. They’ll eat you alive. You’d be easy prey, especially for someone like me.”

“You’d kill me?” Kokichi asks. It’s a stupid question that he already knows Kaito won’t give a truthful answer to, because that would be admitting to his cowardice.

“I could kill you right now if I wanted to,” he boasts. “I won’t, though. It’d be a waste of effort.”

“Okay.” Kokichi doesn’t know what else to say, and so opts to take another drag.

He feels Kaito study him for a moment before scoffing again. “Man, you really are spineless. More damn spineless than Saihara.”

Kokichi keeps his eyes averted and wonders if he could become someone with a backbone. Someone with enough of a spine to stand, really, or perhaps even to stand up to someone like Kaito. Maybe they could graft a strong enough one into the frail, dissatisfying little body he was born into that he might have the will to kill.

 _Maybe I would kill Momota-kun_ , he thinks. _If he didn’t kill me first, that is._

He lets the thought vanish with the smoke he breathes out and watches the sun dip low, low enough to make the water glow a vermilion only a few shades brighter than the stains on Kaito’s teeth.

**Author's Note:**

> basically, my idea for pregame ouma is that he's the sort of person who's actually incredibly vindictive and rather mean, but often too spineless to show it. his motivation for joining dr is basically that he wants to be someone else, someone tougher than he is. and his relationship with kaito is... complicated, but rest assured, they only barely get along because pregame kaito's just an arrogant asshole.
> 
> i might expand more on these ideas later, but... for now, i hope you all liked it! comments and kudos are appreciated, as always!


End file.
